2019-2020 Season Log

[BGkirk]

Rick did Paul mention anything about receiving more funding/donations for transmitting project after the Grosse Savanna videos came out?


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[Rick]

No, we didn't talk about anything specifically related to that presentation, but he did say social media has led to private donations from unexpected places.

[Rick]

A prey bird of some sort had snagged one of our earlier transmittered bird, but the GPS helped our search party locate and recycle the transmitter:

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Then the party began:

[Deltaman]

Good Stuff Rick!!
Thanks for sharing, and we all appreciate your time and effort in this endeavor

[Johnc]

Nice too see those mallards in Louisiana

[Bud]

Those mallard drakes are hard on a hen. Watched one drown all the ducklings to get to the hen again. Watched several drakes trying to mate a hen all at the same time. Surprised she didn't drown, too.

With the ratio so different, maybe they need to look into it closely. I'd love to see a six-mallard-drake-only season or however many needed. Of course, if one shoots a hen, the limit should remain four. It would be like a bonus for not shooting hens. It would help the resource.

Thanks for sharing your experience with us.

[Rick]

With the ratio so different, maybe they need to look into it closely. I'd love to see a six-mallard-drake-only season or however many needed. Of course, if one shoots a hen, the limit should remain four. It would be like a bonus for not shooting hens. It would help the resource.

Reads like the point system, the only real rub with which was it didn't accomodate reordering the bag.

It's my understanding that the science doesn't support a need to spare hens, and I still don't necessarily doubt that science. It's just becoming a personal thing after seeing the ratio so graphically illustrated and not wanting to accidentally shoot a transmittered bird.

[Rick]

Date: 12/21

Time: morning

Location: mudhole

Cloud Cover: cloudy

Wind Direction and Velocity: NE light to moderate

Temperature: 40s

Moon phase: waning 24%

Special Notes: second split opener

Waterfowl Activity: Not at all like an opener should be, but what should have been closer to enough of mostly big ducks on our end and lots of little ones on the other.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Excellent when we'd let them - and when not banged out by other blinds on us or Cherry Ridge.

Hunters: 2, father, Troy, and son, Hunter

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): Marsh did some sweet long mark work.

Special Equipment: SOS

Curses: More than our share of crowd control issues and it sure seemed like everyone in the marsh was waiting until we had we had birds on final approach to pop a spoon or jack.

Kudos: Still had a fine time and shot some pretty birds.

Birds By Species: 1 gadwall, 4 mallards, 2 mottleds, 3 pintails and 2 shovellers

Photo Ops: Hunter and Troy with a pretty string:

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Lagniappe: On mornings like this one, I always find myself wishing for real hunters, instead of once-a-year guys, so we could take better advantage of our ops. At least until it sinks in that the big, slow birds are what the party at hand really needs. And I need to be thankful for that.

[Rick]

PS: vaping is bad for your duck hunting.

[BGkirk]

PS: vaping is bad for your duck hunting.

ha.... I laughed. It won’t be the last


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[Rick]

Date: 12/22 Sun

Time: morning

Location: mudhole

Cloud Cover: cloudy to partly

Wind Direction and Velocity: NW moderate to kind of strong

Temperature: colder than anticipated in the breeze

Moon phase: sliver

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity: Much less of anything around us early than yesterday and then nothing. Though Cherry Ridge, which struggled as badly or worse than us yesterday sure seemed to shoot a lot later in the morning.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: What was around tried to work or did so.

Hunters: 3, father, Jason, son, Wyatt and niece, Torry

Guns: Had one wearing a "Meat Stick" decal in the blind, but it was not.

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): Marsh lost a long chipped greenhead in the open water south of the blind.

Special Equipment: SOS

Curses: Few birds and lots of crowd control issues.

Kudos: They had a nice visit.

Birds By Species: 2 gw teal and 2 mallards

[Ericdc]

This the kind of year that drives a man to retirement?


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[Rick]

Oh, no. Revenge, maybe, but not retirement. Sooner or later, the right party and a decent day will come together, and all will be well.

[Ericdc]

Oh, no. Revenge, maybe, but not retirement. Sooner or later, the right party and a decent day will come together, and all will be well.

I hear ya. Hate seeing folks with a true passion for it struggle so much. As long as I have a place to go, I’m going to keep on going.


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[Ericdc]

Hopefully Darren and the boys can make it come together.


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[Rick]

Date: 12/22

Time: morning

Location: mudhole

Cloud Cover: clear

Wind Direction and Velocity: NW strong

Temperature: cold in the wind

Moon phase: tiny sliver

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity: Saw what little we did see before 8. Again.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Big ducks did as bid, some little ones did, some didn't.

Hunters: 2, Tom and Eric long, long time regulars.

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): Marsh had an easy day.

Special Equipment: sos

Curses: Still no birds.

Kudos: Had a nice visit with old friends of the camp and shot a few birds.

Birds By Species: 1 bw teal, 1 gadwall, 1 gw teal, 3 mallards and 3 shovellers

[DComeaux]

Very nice!

[Rick]

Date: 12/24 Tue

Time: morning

Location: mudhole

Cloud Cover: partly to clear

Wind Direction and Velocity: nil to light northerly

Temperature: around 50

Moon phase: 2%/new

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity: Nil beyond a precious few local birds.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Poor as expected.

Hunters: 2, grandsons Gauge and Preston

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): Easy morning, other than a chipped greenhead that led a merry chase he probably enjoyed on an inactive morning.

Special Equipment: sos

Curses: No birds is bad, but no birds on your grandkids' big hunt is worse.

Kudos: The cousins still managed a good time and have planned their own hunt by Gauge's Creole home for the morning. (Probably be glad to be shed of me.)

Birds By Species: 1 mallard, 1 ringneck and 2 shovellers

[Rick]

Date: 12/25 Wed, Christmas

Time: morning

Location: mudhole

Cloud Cover: cloudy

Wind Direction and Velocity: dead calm to light southerly to dead calm

Temperature: too comfortable

Moon phase: new

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity: Saw precious little but a very few mallards, spoons and jacks and fewer, still, bluewings.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: First big duck pair acted like local mottleds wanting to avoid the mudhole but eventually screwed up to nothing but a combo of fussing feed followed by quiet clucks and chucks on in. Turned out to be mallards. Everything else worked pretty normally: bluewing pair to momma kacks and mallards to the squacky DC.

Hunters: Just the bug and I

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): Could of kissed the bug for the job he did rooting out a mallard that got under the flotant edge of the boat run.

Special Equipment: sos

Curses: Still no ducks to speak of, and the band didn't come when boys were with me yesterday. (Have given Gauge a couple speck bands, so Preston will get this one.

Kudos: Sweet, no pressure morning where I shot a few ducks, missed a couple, passed few while getting my blind rebrushed and cleaned up.

Birds By Species: 3 mallards (1 banded)

Photo Ops: Merry Christmas to me:

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Dog heaven, riding up front like a big shot:

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Lagniappe: INFORMATION FROM OUR FILES:
Species: Mallard
Date banded: 08/14/2018
Banding Location: NEAR PINEHOUSE, SASKATCHEWAN, CANADA
Age: HATCHED IN 2018
Sex: FEMALE

[Duck Engr]

Nice Christmas hunt Rick!

[MallardBay]

Sweet hunt! I'm sure Preston will be excited to get it no matter the timing.

[Bud]

Merry Christmas to you indeed, Sir Rick. Thank you again for bringing duck season to me...to us. Christmas Day with your best friend is like a gift from above. Wish we were there, calm water or not. What better day to ask Chierre for a few pictures of you and Marsh. I want one. Thank you again for sharing a part of your world with us. I pray something over here changes so I can take the pictures myself.

[DComeaux]

Sweet! I wonder where she spent last winter? Telemetry will tell us this.

[Rick]

Sweet! I wonder where she spent last winter? Telemetry will tell us this.

Truth be told, she was an accident, as she acted like a mottled duck: avoiding the mudhole while working over the nearby marsh. Finally coaxed her over and shot her only to think, "Watch it be transmittered." when I saw it was a Susie. Did give a few others a pass and found myself wondering why the ratio seems so much more tilted toward hens when hunting than under the canon net.

Still going to try not to intentionally target them.

[Deltaman]

Nice Christmas solo hunt Rick, and Congrats on the band!

[Rick]

Date: 12/26 Thur

Time: morning

Location: mudhole

Cloud Cover: ground fog until mid-hunt, then again until curfew

Wind Direction and Velocity: NE nil to light

Temperature: cool

Moon phase: still new

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity: Just dribs and drabs in the first fog and nothing in the second, few more seen during the break.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Whistling pretty much continuously during the first fog paid off with occasional ops, but couldn't break any of the really high twinklers seen during the mid-morning weather break. Didn't try whistling in the second fog period and perhaps should have.

Hunters: 2, brothers, JJ and Mark, who always seem to bring ducks with them - largely by helping to capitalize on what's around.

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): Easy morning other than a long search for a chipped bird neither of us saw go down and that he failed to recover.

Special Equipment: sos

Curses: Ain't kickin', given the givens.

Kudos: A fine time was had.

Birds By Species: 3 bw teal, 1 gadwall, 3 gw teal, 1 mallard, 1 ringneck and 3 shovellers

[DComeaux]

Nothing wrong with that.

[Rick]

Date: 12/27 Fri

Time: morning

Location: mudhole

Cloud Cover: light fog all morning

Wind Direction and Velocity: easterly nil to light

Temperature: T-shirt

Moon phase: nearly new

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity: Not "a lot," but saw the most birds I've seen in days, though teal remain conspicuously absent.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: Lord knows most all but a few locals tried to work.

Hunters: 3, John, an octogenarian I've hunted a time or two each of the last twenty-some seasons, with his son and grandson, Mike and Shawn on either their second or third days of hunting.

Guns: They each shot something from John's collection: a 20ga Model 12, a 12ga A5 and a 20ga 1100, respectively.

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): Easy morning.

Special Equipment: sos

Curses: Only that our crowd control issues educated so many birds.

Kudos: Were blessed with enough birds to make it work pretty well, anyway.

Birds By Species: 2 gadwall, 4 mallards, 1 mottled and 3 shovellers

Photo Ops: Our gang, Mike, Shawn and John:

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Mallards tickled them:

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Chasing chipped birds tickled the bug:

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And clipping another "pilot duck" tickled me:

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[Darren]

Made it to camp, brought book for you. See you in AM

[Rick]

Date: 12/28/19 Sat

Time: morning

Location: mudhole

Cloud Cover: light fog early that became heavier later

Wind Direction and Velocity: a sweet SE wind that delivered on it's promise of teal

Temperature: T-shirt

Moon phase: nil

Special Notes:

Waterfowl Activity: Enjoyed what's been just our second big green-wing show of the season, and unlike the last one, deciding to wait and finish with a couple more mallards didn't mean waiting until curfew and ending short of full limits. Even had a wad of black-bellies put in a rare appearance on our end.

Waterfowl Responsiveness: The guys hid, and our birds did as bid.

Hunters: 2, Darren and David (The later of which we neglected to tell it didn't always go so.)

Guns:

Malfunctions:

Dog(s): The bug and I bumped heads early on over breaking. Think he was as excited about the big show of teal as I. Know he straightened up after being required to return his stand without game and wait until bid to go. And he redeemed himself with a nice long mark on a greenhead that flew a good piece before bleeding out.

Special Equipment: sos

Curses: Not a one.

Kudos: Sweet hunt all around: good company and plenty of game. Couldn't ask for a better morning.

Birds By Species: 2 black-bellied whistling ducks, 10 gw teal, 5 mallards and (Darren's "for variety") 1 shoveller

Photo Ops: Our Darren's-hunt traditional dog stand shot:

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One I prefer:

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And one commemorating the bug's sweet mark that will only do so after I read this caption:

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